Kevin Frisch: Clevelands rock

Kevin Frisch

Friday

Feb 29, 2008 at 12:01 AMFeb 29, 2008 at 5:39 AM

You’d think, at 160 inches long and published over the course of two days, a series I wrote last week on New York’s presidents, vice presidents and candidates for those offices would have included every last bit of trivia on record.

You’d think, at 160 inches long and published over the course of two days, a series I wrote last week on New York’s presidents, vice presidents and candidates for those offices would have included every last bit of trivia on record.

But a Victor reader called to tell me I’d missed something: Baby Ruth.

This, ladies and gentlemen, is one of the things I love about my job. Not candy bars, but that it is a constant education.

Baby Ruth, according to my helpful caller, was Ruth Cleveland, the first baby born in the White House and the child whom the Baby Ruth candy bar was named after. A couple remarkable pieces of Americana. Both of which, as it turns out, are almost true.

Ruth was the daughter of President Grover Cleveland and his young bride, Frances Folsom. The two married during Cleveland’s first term. It was the first and only time a president married in the White House, and the affair was suitably lavish. John Philip Sousa led the Marine Band in the Wedding March — kind of like having Justin Timberlake perform at your wedding today (which, of course, you would do at the risk of him tearing the bodice off some unsuspecting bridesmaid).

Grover Cleveland was an interesting character. While a bachelor, he allegedly fathered a child out of wedlock, back before such behavior was quite so fashionable. Cleveland agreed to pay child support for the youngster — named Oscar Folsom Cleveland — but denied being the father. The mom was apparently involved with several men, which may explain why little Oscar was named after not only Cleveland, but his business partner (and the father of his future bride), Oscar Folsom.

Still, his opponents made hay of the issue when Cleveland first ran for president, taunting him with shouts of “Ma, ma, where’s my pa?” (After his victory, supporters would add, “Off to the White House. Ha, ha, ha.”)

Such problems were likely long forgotten by June 2, 1886, when Folsom, 21, married Cleveland, 49. (A virile 49, evidently; the couple went on to have five children.)
Ruth was the couple’s first — but not, as it turns out, the first child born in the White House. She arrived in 1891. Cleveland, the only man elected to two non-successive terms, was between administrations at the time. (He served from 1885-1889 and 1893-1897.)

It was, in fact, Ruth’s younger sister, Esther, who, in 1893, became the first and thus far only child of a president born in the White House.

And as for the candy bar being named after Baby Ruth? A little public relations sleight-of-hand, according to rumor debunkers such as Snopes. com. The candy bar appeared in 1921. By that time, Ruth Cleveland was no longer a baby. In fact, poor thing, she was no longer even alive. She died of diphtheria at age 12 in 1904. A 12-year-old who has been dead for 17 years does not successful marketing make.
A young sports star, however — that’s another story.

Twenty-five-year-old Babe Ruth played his first season for the New York Yankees in 1920, after having been bought from the Boston Red Sox. He broke the single-season record for home runs with 54 — more than every other team except the Philadelphia Phillies. In 1921, he would set a new record: 59 home runs. He was immensely popular and one of the century’s first media stars. To associate your product with the Babe was, on the other hand, marketing gold.

So the Curtiss Candy Company, legend has it, devised the naming-the-candy bar-after-Grover Cleveland’s-daughter story to avoid paying royalties to Ruth. They did a good job of it, too. They even successfully sued another company that wanted to market a Babe Ruth Home Run Bar, arguing the name was too close to theirs.

Thus, the world had to wait another 50 years for a slugger-endorsed confection: the Reggie! bar.

Frances Folsom Cleveland wasn’t around to sample the candy bar named after Reggie Jackson — she died in 1947 — but daughter Esther was. The only president’s child born in the White House died in 1980 at age 87.